Reaction: State of the Dream 2012

Today I sat at my desk and read the United for a Fair Economy State of the Dream report, 2012.  

It was the most depressing thing I've read in a long time.  Here goes (and obviously, all the data below was plainly lifted from the report):

Here's the basic idea:  median wealth in black and Latin@ families is drastically lower than in white communities.  Even as time passes, black families will accumulate wealth at a slower rate than white families, and Latin@ families will actually earn less income than they do now, making the process of accumulating wealth even more challenging.


A closely related set of statistics is around incarceration rates.  65% of incarcerated people are people of color, to say nothing people in detention centers, because that's another data set altogether, and since those are usually privately-run prisons, we don't know all the data.

Education has been proven to help reduce the racial wealth gap, but Blacks are only 60% as likely to have a college degree as their white counterparts, Latin@s 42% as likely.  By 2042, this gap will be even wider for Latin@s if current trends continue.

Talking about gaps in ability to access income, wealth, property, education, etc. is often an "uncomfortable" conversation, especially in these times of general economic discontent.  However, the Pew Research Center produced some good (by which I mean, enormously depressing) numbers on the economic downturn.  Between 2005 and 2009:
-the median white household saw their wealth decline by 16% to $113,149
-the median black household saw their wealth decline by 53% to $5,677
-the median Latin@ household saw their wealth decline by 66% to $6,325

So the current economic climate has only served to widen the racial wealth gap.

All of these things, obviously, are interconnected.  If we start looking at how much of folks' incomes are tied up in debt, types of debt, and interest rates, we see that people of color are increasingly tied in cycles that make social mobility nearly impossible.  These situations have even more dire consequences for people who were at some point incarcerated and have more trouble finding work, getting loans, accessing credit or education, participating in political processes through voting, etc.

The report also tackles the issue of voice in political processes.  Obviously we are not in a one-member, one-vote direct democracy, but even our representative democracy is deeply affected by political campaign spending, and the voice of the super-wealthy has become amplified thanks to the Citizens United ruling, among other things.  Often, we hear racist/xenophobic comments about how people of color should be pleased that we are practically becoming the majority, but it's plain to see that becoming the majority is meaningless in terms of ability to gain assets, which are currently the only way to have any sort of valid political voice in the US at the moment.

You can read all of the State of the Dream reports here.